The conventional wisdom in the media is that President Obama is more than likely to be re-elected in November.
There are some reasons to believe this, namely the fact that the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, is not very exciting to anyone, has been damaged by the long primary and is just not that great of a politician.
In addition, the House Republicans are incredibly unpopular, and they may have done irreparable harm to themselves among women voters.
However, the reality is that even with all of these problems the race is essentially a tie right now, with the president ahead only slightly.
This means that this is the low point for Mitt Romney’s level of support.
He can start acting presidential and focusing on Obama, as opposed to bashing his silly Republican rivals.
Millions of Americans are only beginning to start paying attention to the election, and millions more won’t start until after the conventions.
Having more or less secured the nomination, Romney has a chance to introduce himself to these people.
He will attempt to present himself as a sensible, competent alternative to the president while reminding people about how unhappy they have been with this president’s performance, specifically relating to the economy.
In reality, President Obama’s campaign has a tough road ahead of them.
The campaigners have not really settled in on a theme or on a line of attack against Romney.
They are now trying to convince the public that Romney is a hardcore conservative. Considering that the entire Republican Party complained about how un-conservative he is during the primary, I don’t think this line of attack is going to work.
The Obama campaign does not really have a rationale about why Obama deserves to be re-elected.
He has not laid out his plans for a second term beyond just raising taxes.
The entire campaign so far has been an effort to discredit Romney.
This is because Obama’s record is so unpopular that they can’t possibly hope to run on it.
The problem is that when the American public first sees Romney, they will see a normal, calm, somewhat boring, steady, competent person.
He is a completely reasonable candidate who everyone thinks could be president. He’s not too crazy and he’s definitely not scary. So, it will be tough to make him look unacceptable to most voters.
In addition, all that Romney has to do is ask people if they are better off than they were four years ago.
This election will be a referendum on Obama and his economic policies. They will decide whether or not they like what the president has been doing, and since Romney is a credible president, they will vote for him.
Considering that unemployment is still high, economic growth is tepid, and Europe is officially in recession again. Obama has a lot of problems when it comes to the economy.
If it starts growing rapidly between now and election day, which no one is predicting, he will win. But if continues to grow slowly and difficultly, there is a good chance that President Obama will lose.
Presidents usually get the same amount of the vote as their approval rating. Obama’s approval rating has been in the 46 percent to 48 percent range for most of this year.
This is a pretty sizeable improvement from most of 2011, but anything below 50 percent is the danger zone for the incumbent.
People may like Obama personally, but they do not like the job he is doing as president. This election is starting to look like the 1980 election between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, and there is a chance that, like in 1980, the Republican will win in a landslide, if Romney can remind enough people about how poorly the economy is performing.
However, since Obama is an excellent campaigner, he still has a good chance of being re-elected, even with the poor economy. But it is not going to be easy for him. In fact, I think he should be quite nervous.
Andrew is a sophomore majoring in finance, French and markets and culture.
